


Taken for a Ride: An Evening on the Road

by Kalypso



Series: Sort of trilogy, about evenings, which eventually acquired a fourth part [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-The Great Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:04:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade collects Sherlock from Heathrow Airport in a car.  Not as exciting as other stories about Sherlock and Lestrade in a car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taken for a Ride: An Evening on the Road

**Author's Note:**

> The drive from Heathrow would take a lot longer than this conversation, but I hadn't got enough dialogue for the full trip. Clearly there wasn't much traffic, and there were some long silences between the words.

"Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Czech Airlines, welcome to London. May we ask you to remain in your seats, as Aviation Security have requested to board the plane before you disembark..."

Passengers leaned this way and that to watch as two policemen appeared and stopped by a tall man reclining in his seat with his eyes shut. He opened them, sighed, and held his hands out to be cuffed. One of the officers escorted him towards the exit, while the other collected his hand luggage. A drug-runner, perhaps?

The prisoner was bundled into a police car, which drove across the tarmac and then stopped. He was pulled out, towards a second car parked and waiting.

"You sure you can handle him from here, sir?"

"I can handle him," said a voice from inside the car. The prisoner climbed in, and rested his cuffed hands between his knees as they moved off.

"Evening, Sherlock," said Lestrade. "So what were you up to in Prague?"

"Minsk."

"Minsk?"

"They don't do direct flights. I had to change in Prague."

"What were you doing in Minsk?"

"Being bored."

"Oh, come on, Sherlock, you owe me an explanation."

"I do?"

Lestrade indicated his mobile. _"Arriving Heathrow T1 from Prague 20hrs. Arrest me before I leave plane."_

Sherlock yawned. "I was summoned to Minsk to investigate a murder involving a British citizen. The embassy claimed there were interesting aspects to the case."

"But there weren't."

"It was a tedious domestic murder by a lout who couldn't even speak his mother-tongue properly. He's better off hanged."

"For not speaking English to your standard?"

"From your point of view, no, Lestrade. _You_ would say for brutally butchering an innocent woman, which he confessed to me in ungrammatical detail."

"I happen to oppose the death penalty, but OK, I see why you left him to rot. Why did you want to be arrested?"

"To avoid being kidnapped, of course."

" _Kidnapped_? Who by?"

Sherlock was silent.

"By whom?" tried Lestrade. The consulting detective's lip twitched very slightly. Lestrade sighed, and swung past the roundabout exit for central London. "OK, back to Heathrow."

"By my brother," said Sherlock.

The car completed one and a half turns of the roundabout, and they continued on their way. "Why would your brother kidnap you?"

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Even after my flatmate's blogging, I'm hardly a household name in the British Embassy of Belarus. It had to be somebody closer to home who wanted me there."

"Why would your brother want you to investigate an apparently straightforward domestic murder?"

"The crime was irrelevant. He wanted me to extricate the man by inventing some fanciful alternative explanation of who did it."

"Because?"

"Clearly he had some information Mycroft wanted. Or didn't want the Belarusians to have. I couldn't be bothered to find out."

"You abandoned him because you were angry with your brother for trying to get you to do his dirty work, didn't you?"

"Probably. He won't be best pleased, so he'll have sent someone to pick me up from Customs. That was why I needed you to collect me from the plane."

"So how are you going to hide from him once we're back in London? If you think I'm going to lay on police protection you've another think coming..."

"No, I'll see him tomorrow. He'll be trying to get me to do something else by then."

"What you're telling me is that you've been wasting police time for no good reason at all."

"Don't fuss, Detective Inspector," said Sherlock, tossing him his most winning look. "You know I'll make it up to you."

The car turned right into Marylebone Road, and soon slowed to a halt.

"Can you walk the last few yards without being grabbed off the street, d'you think?"

"I'll try. Have you got the key for the hand-cuffs?"

"I have. And I'll use it as soon as you give me 66 quid."

"Sixty-six quid?"

"Taxi fare. And I'm expecting a pretty big tip."


End file.
